Friday, August 30, 2013

We recently returned from a long-awaited (and long saved-for) 2 week exploration of areas in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Canada. These provinces, roughly east of Maine (map below), treated us Floridians to gorgeous mountain vistas and clear, refreshing days in the mid 70s with overnight lows in the low 60s or a bit cooler. This trip was so enjoyable for us that I could write a long account, but that would bore you - - and still would fail to capture our full experience. A couple of future posts will describe some particular experiences and locations other than this park.

View from the road

Rather than start with a description of our itinerary, today I will post a few photos from a large Canadian national park on the northeastern end of Nova Scotia (you should be able to click on them to enlarge them). We spent 3 nights in this area midway through our time in Eastern Canada. Rugged mountains and high plains are never far from ocean views in this park. We hiked several trails and drove the scenic coastal road. No photo can capture the majestic scenery and breathtaking vistas we enjoyed, but I'm hoping you enjoy this taste of Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

Coming out of the forest on the Skyline Trail

Walkway from the end of the Skyline Trail

Vegetation along the Bog Trail

On the Bog Trail

Blogger is being stubborn today--can't get it to arrange the images nicely. Frustrating, but will publish anyway. Sorry.No question of the day this time. Thanks for your visit.

Monday, August 5, 2013

For a change from local North Florida locations, I tried this night scene, somewhere in Midwestern rolling hills in November before snow has fallen. There were spots like this near the western Michigan city where I grew up, but the scene is not specific to a certain place. Sorry the photo is a bit blurred, but my clearer ones were not at all true to the colors in the piece. "November Moon" was inspired by my favorite PBS painting show with instructor Jerry Yarnell. Yarnell paints beautifully in acrylics and provides detailed, extremely helpful step-by-step instruction for well-developed paintings, each completed over several episodes. I learn more from Yarnell's approach and techniques than from the quick, done-in-one-show paintings on some other shows (although one of them was the source of my original feeling a few years ago that, "Maybe I could paint"). I don't ever copy a painting by another painter, and in this case, simply adapted the background of Yarnell's piece with my own trees, road, house, and other details. I tried the hues in his palette which differ from combinations I've used before, but blended them my own way. After his introductory session I was not able to see the subsequent episodes (fortunately I think), so went off in my own direction. He completed his version with a twisted dead tree and some geese in flight (not a house, pine tree, or road). The work went fairly quickly and was fun to create. A close-up detail (the colors are not as light as they look in the close-up photo) shows the cozy house on a country lane one November night (As always, click on any photo for a larger view).Question of the day: Are you also fans of Public TV and Radio and their affiliates (like the Create channel).?